There was a lot of concern this afternoon about torrential rain and downpours swarming through Southeast Mass. While we did get some heavy rain in spots, the flood threat wasn't as widespread as we feared. And that's a good thing. What's even more interesting is the fact that with all that available moisture, we came away virtually unscathed in many spots.
Begs the question, "Why was that?"
Well, just because you have a front to plow the hot, humid air upward to create downpours doesn't mean you will get every cloud to turn into a storm. In fact, the atmosphere has to have some way to maintain the updrafts (upward moving air that feeds storms) in these clouds. No updraft "maintenance" and you get short-lived downpours and storms.
And that's exactly what happened today. Had these downpours been allowed to grow, we would have had a mess on our hands.
Onto the cooldown for tomorrow. How ready are you for this? Today's highs in the upper 80s get squashed to the low and mid 70s! It's a total about face thanks to thicker clouds and a few showers rolling in late day.
I'm not sold on a washout tomorrow afternoon, but I am seeing some lighter sprinkles and showers. This is a weak area of low pressure moving through, and while most of the wet weather comes during the overnight hours Thursday night, it is enough to sink the temperatures and give the clouds the upper hand.
Weekend warms up and stays rain-free. Now that's a forecast we can all get behind.
Pete
And I thought the TV world was tough! This article shows that it ain't easy being a climate scientist.